Rosanna Groove
Paula Shuffleburg
If you ask drummers of ages 30 to 60 who their main source of inspiration as a drummer is/was, many are gonna say Jeff Porcaro. He was and still is a huge source of inspiration for me personally as well.
This is a typical example of Jeff Porcaro's musicality and personality. He was particularly known for his big heart, tasteful playing, and for always putting the music first. No ego involved whatsoever.
Being a studio musician first and the drummer for Toto second he had to always let the music come first. That's why everyone wanted to work with Jeff. That and his very particular sense of tempo and timing. They don't call the man 'Mister Time' for nothing..
All of this experience of being an in demand studio musician led him to become extremely musically sensitive. Jeff Porcaro was at the point where he was almost always able to develop his drum parts as the song progressed.
The further into the song, the more his patterns develop into something more intricate, busier. Not for the sake of notes, but because the music so desires. This way the song naturally progresses into something more exciting where it benefits from a few extra notes here and there.
At around 0.39 into the song he starts playing all ghost notes as we know the pattern. So 13 x 2 bars have been played without playing all the ghost notes. Are you still wondering why (drum) covers of Rosanna never seem to sound like the orginal?
So this equals 13 x 2 bars in total. Never noticed this 7 x 2 bar bar verse did you? Me neither, and this among many other things, is proof that the song was written extremely well in my opinion. No concessions were made to favor logics or 'being right' or some other bull.. Music/Art won, in all its beauty.
Here's a little songwriting bonus assignment for you. Try to imagine the form being anything but this. The most logical thing would be to add another 2 x 1 bars in front of the "Never thought.." part. Yup, that would probably take out all of the excitement, flow and momentum which are built up in the verse. This is what I consider a proof of concept: try something else and see how that works. If the more logical solution turns out to make it worse then the irregular form must be the right way to go. Not because it's more interesting, but because it's the better, more beautiful option.
Assuming you want to start on the lead hand (R or r, accented or unaccented) only three remain. If we want to accent the 8th note upbeats, the 3rd note of the triplet as is used in this fill, the RRL sticking becomes the right one to use, because it's the most convenient.
The fill here is notated playing the first and second note of beat 3 as rr on snare, but we can also play along with the riff and omit the second note of beat 3. This is also a reason to pick the RRL sticking as a basis, because it allows us to play this variation quite comfortably.
Note: When Jeff played one beat long triplet fills he used the sticking LLR a lot. This can be seen in his video Star Licks Master Sessions where he demonstrates the half time shuffle with the band. It's easy for us to see because he plays this fill as an intro as well as into the ride groove @3.38.
Note: Don't get hung up on the Bo Didley bass drum figure because Jeff adds the bass drum on or before beat 3 of the second bar. He says "something like this". The Bo Didley figure INSPIRED his version of the Purdie/Bonham half time shuffle. Experiment or better yet: imitate, emulate, create!
2. Accenting only the second note of there triplet brings a lot of rhythmic tension because this note is not part of the shuffle. So the rLr is a great sticking when you want ghost notes in your shuffle. We then use this dynamic motion Rlr. The version with the rLr dynamics certainly has its place in more rhythmically complex music but not so much in a pop tune with a great time feel. Too much rhythmic tension would just make it sound weird. (Don't ever show off syncopation skillz at the expense of the music. Been there, done that, got the angry looks of band mates..)
When the prechorus starts it's back to 82 and when the unison lick which leads into the chorus is played the pace goes up to 84 for the chorus groove. When the second verse starts it's back to 85-ish bpm.
There were many, many drummers who had better metronomic, rational time. Jeff repeatedly told people his time sucked. But according to his credits he was surpassed by no one when it comes to musical, emotional, perfect feeling time.
When Jeff Porcaro passed away in 1992 he was replaced by Simon Phillips who had been playing with Steve Lukather (guitars, vocals and songwriting in Toto) in other projects. Steve said Jef had always been a fan of Simon's playing so the choice was rather straighforward.
A lot can be said about the differences between these two drumming musicians, and an awful lot has been said about it. So I won't get into the whole 'who's the better drummer' argument because it's nonsense. They are/were both stellar musicians with great musical sensibility and personalities to match.
This fill is quite telling for their different approach to music. Simon more or less duplicates the lick while Jeff adds his own accent line to it. Simon uses more notes, more instruments. So the difference in drum kit configuration is sort of a giveaway here.
First of all get a nice shuffle feel going. First focus on making it feel good by itself without adding the ghost notes. Do this with the snare on beat 3 (half time) or with the snare on 2 and 4. Don't worry about the ghost notes just yet. It's most important to get the shuffle to feel good.
Simultaneously practice the 3-note sticking Rlr we're going to be using when the ghost notes enter. Count along to make sure you're still playing triplets. 1triplet2triplet3triplet4triplet or 1nm2nm3nm4nm.
Once the shuffle starts to feel good, and the Rlr sticking is working for you, try adding ghost notes. Start by adding them in all the places without the ones directly after the snare. Make a distinction:
This way you'll soon notice that the ghost notes aren't the thing you want to be focusing on. You should always be focusing on getting a nice even sound and a good feeling shuffle, with AND without ghost notes.
Practice slowly and work your way up to about quarter note = 174 bpm. If you want to do yourself a favor here, practice this to the "Rosanna Intro and Verse" loop in our MIDI player. You get access to this and all other free MIDI loops after signing up for our Free Membership.
As a bonus you can practice everything else in the Rosanna drum part to our MIDI tracks as well. The chorus groove, the fills, and the horn unison lick are all in here, for FREE! How's that for studying smart?
You'll learn the Rosanna Groove step by step by doing specific exercises. I'll show you how to practice the specific Fills with exercises. And as a bonus there are MIDI loops waiting for you to practice along to. This way you know exactly where you stand in terms of tempo.
Cool, check out our Online Drum Lessons department. Or come in right away and get a Lifetime Free Membership. You'll get access to our MIDI player which includes the Intro and Verse, Horn Lick and Chorus of the Rosanna drum parts to practice along to. You'll get a ton of other cool stuff as well. Extra Rudimental exercises, Lessons, and more MIDI to practice along to. And we're barely getting started!
If you want to know everything there is to know about playing Shuffles, Stickings, or Orchestration you can check out my book the 3D Drumming System - The Complete Workbook/Encyclopedia for the Modern Drummer. It's taken me over four years to write and compile all the material in it so and it's constantly being updated so I would hope this is the Ultimate Back To Basics Drum Bible.
And here's the original 'What makes this song great? Ep. 9 - Toto" by Rick Beato. If you're like me and you're interested in more than just drums and want to know more about the other parts in this song I highly recommend you check this one out.
I always love asking our special guest artists what drum groove had the biggest influence on their playing and overall sound. Funny enough, the groove Anika brought up is from one of my favorite drummers as well: Jeff Porcaro!
Jared Falkis a lifelong drummer, drum teacher, and the co-founder of Drumeo. For over 18 years, Jared has been a leader in the online music education industry, publishing his first online video lessons in 2003 and founding Musora in 2005.
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